Joyeux Noël

It's unlikely that I'll post anything new today. The children are all off school, with the resultant increase in noise levels. There's still plenty of preparation to do for tomorrow, so it just remains to wish all my readers a happy and peaceful Christmas. Joyeux Noël, Kevin

No. 63. Garlic and Recessionary Courgettes

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

Another night-time study. With Christmas approaching and my darling wife out with her friends for the evening, I had plenty of time to sit quietly and paint. I threw this set-up together in the kitchen, as ever. I clamped my warm spotlight to a door of the overhead press; my daylight lamp to my table easel and began.

I liked the way the shadow fell across the courgettes, making them recede into the dark. I chose garlic to complement the courgettes, because I've always been a bit daunted by its flaky off-white-paperyness. Its always a shady little character and this time, I avoided depicting it for as long as I could before I started into it properly. There seemed to be no way of massing in the main body colour, as there was with the courgettes but I figured that, since this is all about learning, that I should take on these little challenges. Otherwise, what would be the point of these exercises? I had to drag my consciousness back to basics; Dabs! Dabs; you fool! 

The nicest part about this particular night's work was having the radio on in the background. I had it fixed on RTE 1 [Ireland's national public service station, for those of you who've dropped in from abroad] When I started painting, a rock music programme was drawing to an end. It was followed by Peter Browne's excellent traditional Irish music slot 'The Rolling Wave'. Finally, there was an audio documentary about the current crisis in the economy. Although not very encouraging to someone selling paintings, it made pleasurable listening. It's doubly gratifying to indulge in a hobby and to be able to listen to radio, while it paints a picture in your mind. Even if it is a depressing one. The recession, I mean.

Original Thanking

A few weeks ago, the Irish Times published their annual Christmas gifts supplement. They had contacted me previously about my website, www.irishdailypaintings.com where I sell my small oils painting studies, with a suggestion to insert an article on it. 

It demonstrated to me why print is still vital for advertising. There's something reassuring to buyers about a write up in a newspaper. You can pour all the searchable tags you like into a web site to drive people to your online presence but at the end of it, many people don't see material published on the web as verifiable and authentic. We all know from the movies that a newspaper office is full of caffeine-fuelled editors and journalists, with sleeves all rolled up, endlessly fighting to find the truth. So we know that all the material has been researched by the hacks and verified by a growling cigar-chomping ed, don't we? And that's a good thing. On the internet, it has been said, nobody knows you're a dog; any mutt could claim anything and they frequently do. The trouble is, we all suspect that the claims may be nothing more than piss up a lamp-post -even after evaporation, there's a bad smell and you don't want to park your bike there.

Subsequent to publication, I received many more enquiries [and sales] over two weeks than I had had in the entire year before. Print is not dead. You can't sit in a café and browse comfortably through an old copy of the internet and you can't hide anonymously behind the puff and flummery of a web site and expect people to have faith in you.

Of course, you are reading this on a blog -but I've been verified and passed as authentic by Citizen Kane. So, thank you.

No. 61. Nestling Aubergines

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

These two shiny aubergines [isn't 'eggplant' a singularly unattractive name?] were sitting amongst all their friends in a basket in my local supermarket. Decked out in their finest rich purple livery for stardom and immortality in one of these daily paintings, only to be cruelly eaten in a frenzy of vegetable carnage that is one of my wife's ratatouilles. They don't know it yet, but they will be converted, courtesy of my metabolism, into pure painting energy. Or something else, of which I've no doubt you're thinking right now.

I chose an intense red ground for this artwork -and you can see it poking through in places on the canvas as I painted quite loosely in a kind of impressionist method. I had wanted to see how it would affect the tone and in fact, the darks of the aubergines seemed to benefit. Also, I re-used a piece of silvery patterned fabric that has appeared in a few of these studies. It all took under an hour and a half.

No. 60. A Fruit Beginning with 'N'

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

While I painted this, I thought of the joke I heard from Dublin comedian, Brendan Grace about two little boys in the school yard. One says to the other, while holding something behind his back, 'Guess what fruit I have behind my back.'  The other little boy says, 'A napple?' 'No.'  'A norange?' 'No,' says the first little boy, producing what's in his hand. 'A nonion'.

So you can imagine the fun I had. It also occurred to me that we have an awful lot of North African pottery around the place. This one came from a trip to Tunisia and survived the ceramic-crunching baggage reclaim experience to feature in this little oil painting.

No. 59. Lemon & Reflection in a Scotch Bottle

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

To be sure, it's seldom I see my own face reflected in a bottle of scotch but when it is, it's usually a happy face grinning pointlessly out from a bottle of Laphroaig. This is a single malt whisky from the Hebrides, whoever they are. This whiskey, pardon me, whisky is so peaty, you could dry it out and use it to plant heather. But there are better ways. One excellent use is for 'medicinal purposes'. I tried it last night to medicine up some inspiration and it does work -I think it could really catch on. It makes everything look better. Oh, and there's a lemon in it, too. Don't answer that. 

In addition, I've posted a couple of photos of me in my atelier. A friend came around yesterday with a couple of sacks of wood for my stove, an act of pity for which I'm pathetically grateful. Anyway, he took my camera and took a couple of shots of this old git, whose grimy overalls have burst at the gut [it's the pressure, you see].

  

No. 58. Clementine Awash in a Soapdish

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

An odd combination, I know but I like the turquoise and green colouring of this little ceramic fish-shaped dish. It had been languishing in a press since we transformed our bathroom into something resembling a hammam -all stone tiling in biscuity hues- and my wife deemed the dish unsuitably vivid. 

I was going to write something pithy and entertaining but a Val Doonican record just came on the radio and I became confused.

So I kept this study as  loose as I could, given my propensity to become enslaved to depicting reality. Below is a picture of the setup I used. 

No. 57. Milk Jug with Spoon

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

SOLD

I've painted this little milk jug before and it proved to be a challenge. Those little pink florets are the devil to paint when you're as obsessed with detail as I am. I lightly dabbed them in, worked around them with varying hues of grey for the white porcelain , then reworked the flowers with a warmer hue of pink as appropriate. Then I left it at that. 

Incidentally, I found the jug, which is a Roy Kirkham design, in TK Maxx. When important people come to the house for a cup of tea, this jug is taken out and the feeding trough is covered up with a tarpaulin.

You can see the setup in the second picture. I used a fair amount of Liquin hoping that it'll dry somewhat quicker than usual.

No. 56. Oriental Bowl & Spoon

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

SOLD

This was done at least a week ago but I forgot to post it.

I had last evening to myself, so instead of vegetating in front of the telly, I brought up this little ensemble from my studio and plonked it down on the patterned oilcloth that covers our kitchen table. My spotlight, I hung from a chair that I placed on the table and I used Royal Talens H2O oils [they're soluble in water so they don't fume up the house]. Once again, I had to work my tonal values back from the intense highlights. I thought the pattern on the background may cause some trouble but in the end worked well. It gives a nice warmth to the composition. The only problem with late painting for me is that I come alive at about bedtime, so it took an hour of telly to get back the soporific effect, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. Perhaps some opium might do the trick...

No. 55. Pear & Oriental Pillbox

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

You'd think with all this fruit around I'd feel a little healthier. What you can't see is the glass of red wine that's just off to the right of this composition. The wine kept on evaporating. Must be the oppressive heat in this country. Whatever; you've probably gathered that this was an evening's work rather than the morning. I don't have to exshplain my drinking habitsh to you. You don't care. You never leave commentsh on my poshts, nor nuthin'. Hic.

No. 54. Half-dressed Orange & WIne Bottle

Oils Still Life Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

SOLD

I set this up in my kitchen, after the children went to bed and the house was quiet. We have a kitchen worktop made of merbau, which is a type of mahogany. It's a rich, dark red that offset the orange peel beautifully. Because of the spotlight [you can see it in one of the other photos] there was a clear reflection of the orange in the glass of the wine bottle. The whole setup seemed to glow like something from a renaissance painting. There's partial nudity and alcohol; in short, everything a renaissance man could want.

No. 53. Rosy Apples. Study in Oils

Oils Landscape Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

SOLD

Another antidote to the curse of television addiction. I set these apples up on my kitchen table, turned on the radio and settled in for an hour's painting. In the process, while trying to adjust my warm spotlight for best results, I managed to burst the adjustable joint. I'll have to go and find another one today as I can't do without it. I ate one of the apples after and very tasty it was too.

No. 52. Connemara Landscape

Oils Landscape Study on canvas panel. 7" x 5". Click here to buy this study.

SOLD

If you ever come to Ireland, make sure you visit Connemara. The 'Twelve Pins' [Na Beanna Beola] mountain range dominate the landscape, although they're not that high compared with other ranges. It's quite beautiful. I've made many trips there, especially before I was married, because it's an Irish speaking area [Gaeltacht] and I'm a frustrated student of Irish.